This is Elk Rapids around the turn of the century or a bit before. Elk Rapids is in upper lower Michigan. My grandfather, great grandfather, ran the last steam boat to run in the inland water ways there and his brother ran the livery service. We got people around.
In the summer these days, Elk Rapids is a tourist haven, jammed with mass humanity. But in the winter, just the locals are around and it’s a perfect place to write without having to deal with so much snow we get here at camp. They get plenty but it’s manageable.
Elk Rapids sits between Grand Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan and Elk Lake. You can see Old Mission Peninsula across the bay, but in certain places Lake Michigan looks like an ocean it’s so wide. The Great Lakes. Glaciated basins, five of them, they form the greatest body of fresh water on earth. And the waters run in our blood.
I’ll soon be spending two months there writing. Maybe longer. It’s a lovely place.
Dreams: After my mother died, I felt guilty for suggesting she try Aleve, a new (at the time) anti-inflammatory drug for her knees. They said it contributed to her stroke–along with hormone replacement therapy, a cold medicine, her weight and uncontrolled high blood pressure. Luckily for me, and as a fluke, she told me her doctor had ok’d it–if not, I may not have been able to deal with it. Soon afterward, I had a dream that I sent her off in a huge building with tons of corridors that went on and on. I was sending her on some errand. Mother at times seemed child-like, though she was far from helpless. She didn’t want to go. I told her she was being silly and shooed her on. Reluctantly she went. As soon as I sent her I realized I needed her back and that I’d never get her back. I ran and ran through all the corridors, it seemed all night, and I couldn’t get her back. Even now, the dream upsets me. She was only 64. (I will be 64 in March). She had had a premonition my first son would be born with Down Syndrome. She said someone “told her” and I never asked her who. I’m hoping she’ll tell me in my dreams. If Einstein is right, it’s not impossible. The Noetic Institute and other scientists have proven that we can move forward in time and that thoughts have power to move objects. They have power in general, so be careful what you think. I believe dreams inform our lives, they are not incidental to it. They are not something to be dismissed as some silly aberration. And they are more than psychologically revealing as well. They are experiences on a spiritual level. Perhaps an alternate universe. Glimpses.
L.E.K. 